RWC Foreign Language Professor Jody Ballah likes taking field trips.”[Going on a field trip] is definitely something I’d like to do again because I think the students like them and I know I enjoy them,” said Ballah.
Ballah, who teachers Francophone Culture and Intermediate French, recently took several of her students to the Tournées Festival of New French Films at Northern Kentucky University, where they watched the French-made film “La Graine et la mulet” (The Secret of the Grain).
The movie, completely in French but with subtitles, got positive reviews all around.
“I know I really enjoyed it, and I had very good feedback from the students. This was the first French film many of them have ever seen,” said Ballah.
“A lot of students mentioned that they had a different reaction from the film compared to American movies, where everything is nicely wound up and all the characters look perfect and everything,” she added.
A native Canadian, Ballah is very familiar with French culture. She moved to the U.S. two years ago to take a teaching position at RWC.
“I’m always looking to find French things out here in Greater Cincinnati,” said Ballah. “I like to be able to show students it is not just in the classroom, but that they can go out and use it and find out some things about [French] culture.”
According to Ballah, students really enjoy getting out and learning outside the classroom, and she was happy to provide the opportunity to mix up the routine. Earlier this year, Ballah took her Elementary French class to La Petit France, a French restaurant in Blue Ash.
“It works out really well, because we get to experience something that fits right into the curriculum, but is outside the class, which is really great,” she said.
Students don’t have to know French to sign up for one of Ballah’s courses. Her “Francophone Culture” (French 261) class (which looks at different French-speaking countries and their cultures) is an elective that is open to all students.